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Gwinnett school vandalized with anti-gay graffiti

Vandals struck a Gwinnett high school Tuesday, littering buildings, sidewalks and a sign with anti-gay, racist and anti-Semitic graffiti while expressing support for President-elect Donald Trump.

The slurs included "fags must die," "faggot," "build the wall," "join the Klan," swastikas and outlines of Klansmen along with the word "Trump." The graffiti was painted on five classroom trailers, a sidewalk and a sign at Collins Hill High School near Suwanee, according to the AJC.

The slurs were among a handful of anti-gay incidents in metro Atlanta discussed on Facebook this week. A gay man and popular drag performer posted that he was called "faggot" while getting coffee at a Starbucks on Tuesday. Another gay man posted that two men called him "faggot" when he pulled into a QuikTrip in Lawrenceville and slashed a tire on his car when he went inside.

Project Q Atlanta reached out to both men and will update the post if they respond. (UPDATE | One of the men speaks out below.)

At the high school, a group of students and parents gathered Tuesday evening to protest the graffiti and slurs, calling it "disgusting" and "sickening," according to WSB.

The school's principal, Kerensa Wing, emailed students and parents on Tuesday to say she was "not disheartened" by the vandalism. Via the AJC:

"As we continue our Thanksgiving break," Wing wrote, "I am not disheartened by this incident as I know that this type of behavior does not define our school community and for that I give thanks."

Officials said the Gwinnett school system's police department is investigating the incident and reviewing footage from security cameras at the campus.

"We will be reviewing video and hopefully we'll be able to identify who was behind this and prosecute them," Sloan Roach, a Gwinnett County schools spokeswoman, told WSB.

In October, a North Carolina-based chapter of the Ku Klux Klan littered a metro Atlanta neighborhood with anti-LGBT fliers. They targeted transgender people and called them "an abomination" and suggested their commit suicide by hanging themselves on "a tree out in the back yard."

'I felt unsafe for being gay'

UPDATE | Kevin McClelland, a Fantasy Girls cast member at Jungle who performs as Celeste Holmes, said as he walked into the Starbucks on Peachtree near 7th Street in Midtown, the driver of a white pickup truck yelled "faggot" at him.

The incident on Tuesday morning was jarring to McClelland and his feeling of personal safety in what he considered a welcoming environment for LGBT people.

"I hate that word. I'm 53 years old and it's been used to belittle me and make me feel afraid all my life," McClelland said.

"When he yelled it at me, my whole body tensed and I felt 12 years old again in my junior high school hallway. For the first time in years, I felt unsafe for being gay," he added.

McClelland said the anti-gay outburst said more about the pickup truck driver than any lasting impact it had on him.

"I've also learned that when people do and say things like that, it says more about them than me. And, in my mind, I couched it that way, entered Starbucks and went along my merry and very gay way," McClelland said.

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